To transform a nation is an unreachable dream if we don’t start from the school, the pulsing heart of relations and identity, the space of socialization. What education for Mars? investigates the sense of education from within a Roman suburban Art Studies high school. Voices of dissent and delusion of a generation betrayed by the incapacity of school to create knowledge, social mobility and understanding of subjective identity. Scandalously intelligent, creative, active, they nurture themselves of self-education, social, new-media: aware of the absence for a future, yet never ready to give up, they define school as a cement box made up of holes through which gazing is forbidden. The frontal lesson, the impossibility of being one’s self, the resignation to hiding, the oppressive sensation of always being in front of the gallows, the physical constriction of a hostile space, the closed system: in front of the attentive yet nonpartisan artist eyes, students free themselves of more than some pebbles. For the students of the Roman high school an iconic conclusion through the medium of the neon: Personale è Politico (individual means politics) summarizes the hope of realizing an independent pedagogy, a shared space that may assign an equal relevance to individual opinions, allowing for one’s desires to be listened by the world. Do we really want to shape individuals that just adapt, recalibrating without a pose, to a form of knowledge that precludes the awareness of one’s own desires? The answer comes from the heart of the Indian sub-continent, the Krishnamurti Foundation, third stage of the project after Habana Art Academy : education is learning what one desires, with an open and responsible attention of the self and others, a journey of exploration. It doesn’t surprise that India and its numerous sociopolitical, cultural and economic contradictions is actually the treasure trove that shows us the direction to follow. The Indian thought is the echo of Buddha’s atheism, an uncontaminated matrix from the monotheistic supremacy, akasa is the empty space in which we can shape ourselves, pramāṇas is the mean of knowledge, conceptions that have resisted through the British colonial influences on the education system and are now re-emerging in the pacifist global culture.

Keywords: instruction in ancient Rome

The education system in Rome called for studies to begin at 7 years of age with the Grammaticus (which also taught in ludi magister and ludi litterarius) and it followed with the rethor (Marcus Aurelius and Alexander Severus begin their studies with a litterator). In any case, the ludi magister teaches children (from all social classes) arithmetic, writing and literature. The grammaticus instead has the task of making the student perfectly bilingual in Latin-Greek (there is also the figure of the paedagogus, a Greek slave whose duty is to transmit the bases of grammar and the Greek language), yet its teachings also include geography, astronomy, literature and mythology.

According to the Historia Augusta, Marcantonius had two grammatici: one for Latin language and the other for Greek language. The study of grammar and metrics lay the bases for a development of rhetoric. For Seneca, the Grammaticus shouldn’t just be a qualified teacher, but also a good man of moral caliber, “guardian of language” (custos sermonis), “guardian of articulate speech” (vocis articulatae custos). Once the studies along with the grammaticus were completed, the student begins those with the rethor, a guide that prepares him to the public career. The rhetoric, a Greek invention, is the art of persuasion, a double-edge weapon that allows on one hand to obtain oratorical control in meetings and judicial contexts, on the other hand it permits for a certain manipulation of truth. Many rethores are of low social origins and this creates discontent among the roman literates, also due to the fact that in time the rethores reach higher salaries than those of the grammatici. The lexicon which describes the profession of the teacher is rich: praeceptor (teacher), professor (teacher of high studies), educator (educator). With a distinction between written and oral culture, the comment of philosophical and literary texts close the educational circle, stimulating the debate and formation of a critical knowledge that is sharp and liberal.

Bibliography

Lisa Maurice, The Teacher in Ancient Rome: The Magister and His World, Lanham 2013.